


Marked

by fadinglove



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Child Abuse, Cinnamon Roll Newt Scamander, Credence Barebones Needs a Hug, Gay Credence Barebones - Freeform, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Physical Abuse, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sexual Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-22
Updated: 2016-12-03
Packaged: 2018-09-01 10:43:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 2,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8621431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fadinglove/pseuds/fadinglove
Summary: He has not found the child. He is the child. (abandoned work)





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> rape is a little graphic so please read warnings. also, credence is depicted as a younger age here.

"Have you found the child?" His lips are wet against his ear. Wet and warm and threatening. The words roll through his brain, over his tongue, back into the deepest reaches of his throat, and he can feel the bitter bile that begins rising dreadfully to the point of his teeth.

Credence shakes his head no, staccato jerks that convey his anxiety, gripping his fingers so tightly they turn pale, white, bloodless. He has not found the child. "I-" he begins, but it's barely a burst of sound and he can't push anything out of his dry, rasping throat.

His left hand is littered with knifing cuts from the whip of his mother last night, who lashed down with a belt until pain made him black out into nothing and nothing... There are gashes in his back, too. They ache with the fury of his... sorrow.

He has not found the child. He _is_ the child.

"Find me that child," Percival grasps the wounded fingers and heals them, just like that, with a swish and flicker of his wand. The younger boy is mesmerized, as he always seems to be, with magic. "Find me that child, and you will be _free. Everything will be better."_

There is a gentle touch on his wrist, a firm grasp on his back. A hand on the nape of his neck, drawing him closer. "Come here," Graves continues, and Credence's breath quavers and his pupils dilate with fear.

But the pain is gone.

Silhouettes in the dark alley. Narrow, isolated, deserted. They are vagabonds of sloping black blending in with the drying spilled ink of nightfall.

"I-" he tries again, but no use.

It's messy. So, so messy. There is blood everywhere, like always, and fingers that press so hard into Credence's waist and face and neck and chest that it could rival his ma's beatings. Percival pounds mercilessly into him every time, whispering the names of different women and lost loves, while the boy underneath gasps and tries desperately to blink away the pain.

He tries not to make a sound, because the last time he began whimpering it didn't turn out so well. Credence thinks of light, the bustling city, Percival's warm eyes and the feel of him when he isn't being rough.

When it's finished in the chilly night air, Percy cleans them up and Credence releases shaking breaths that fog the night air. Tainting. Frosting. It hurts. Lord, it hurts. Something's torn down there and he doesn't even want to try and stand.

"You were good today," Graves smiles, eyes distant and gaze faraway. "Good, good boy." It's so quiet around here. _"Scourgify,"_ and the blood is gone. Red sucked from the gray of the cement, like pain had never happened here.

Credence has never liked that about magic.

"Get up, get up now," and Credence pants and whimpers as the pain increases tenfold but he stands, somehow, someway. Without so much as a warning, they are transported in the blink of an eye, popped into thin air.

Upon opening his eyes, he finds himself standing alone in front of a very familiar building.

He gets beaten that night, but it's alright. Just blood and bruises and body, and he'll take it like the strong-blooded wizard he is.


	2. II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there are probably inaccuracies but idc

_Newt Scamander remembers the eight-year old repressed witch, smiling up at him with a cute gap-toothed grin and plaited sun-kissed hair. There was always a hint of sadness in that smile, but it made him burn up inside with joy when she did it._

_She was not an animal- not at all- and yet he found pleasure in caring for her with the same gentleness he used for his creatures- sometimes fond, sometimes wary. There was a strong bond between them, but on fragile ground._

_He tried to step carefully on cracking glass._

_One day she giggles up at him under the afternoon sun. "Newt, tell me that story of Pickett again. Please, it's so funny, the way you do it."_

_So he tells her for the hundredth time, but he doesn't mind, acting out all of the scenes in an exaggerated way that never fails to make the girl chortle and double over with shaking laughter. He enjoys making others smile and introducing fascinating things to them. It didn't happen in Hogwarts all that much, but still._

_When they're finished and she gathers her composure back, he grins. "Like that, do you?"_

_Then she looks at Newt with an expression so serious and grim it stirs the deep feeling of unease he always has in his bones, around her. It's natural, she had told him, my state makes people feel imbalanced. "I'm going to die soon."_

_Newt stands up ever so slowly. "How... blatant."_

_She shrugs. "It's true. I'm not going to live much longer with this Obscurial, and I'm going to die. I wish everyone would stop pretending otherwise." She pouts. "And I wish... I wish it didn't have to be this way. All the wizards and witches always talk about how great magic is. We're better than the Muggles because we have magic, and they don't."_

_He feels so many things in his heart._

_"But you know what's not true, Newt?" the girl asks, pulling on a braid. "You know what's a lie?"_

_"What?" he croaks._

_"Magic_ isn't _great. Magic is the big black ugly dark thing inside of me that's going to kill me soon, so magic isn't great. It's a curse. I wish everyone would realize it."_

_Later, when the darkness implodes from her, combusting within, crackling and snapping with the force of a thousand fatal spells, his heart is overwhelmed. The gap between her teeth looks like a twisted scar of childhood innocence, and her flowing hair is a tornado of electricity, snapping alongside the blackness she churns._


	3. III: interlude

"Ma, please-"

"Don't call me that," her eyes are burning in the dark. "I am not your mother. Your mother was an ungodly creature; a witch."

_She deserved to burn in Hell for all it's worth._

_-_

He finds a wand under Modesty's bed. It's just a simple, plain stick of wood, tapering to a blunt point and about an arm's length, yet it carries more meaning than anything else in the household. She protests but nothing matters because of course their mother finds them.

Credence hands Ma his belt.

-

Everyone is dead, blackened veins running up and down their bodies, cracked skin flaking their faces. It's grotesque. It's a show of power, because he has not found the child. He _is_ the child. There is a crackling darkness within him, spreading through every artery like ink dripping into the pipelines of his body. Credence is the Obscurial and his sight is marred by tragedy and anger and sorrow.

He's killed Shaw, he's killed Ma, can he stop killing? Is there anything left to him except utter destruction and fire?

* * *

Newt watches streetlamps pop out, cars being crushed, cobblestones flipping up in a horrifying display of an invisible force. The Obscurial appears and disappears, a flash of black darker than nightfall as it churns endlessly. "Stay here," he tells Portpentina, even though he knows she won't, and apparates.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pretty much just a recap so far but I wanted to build it up.. real stuff is coming soon


	4. IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been procrastinating sorry

"Is it okay- is it okay to come closer? Any closer?" Newt is careful. It's a delicate situation. "It's alright, everything will be fine, trust me-"

"Why should I trust you?" Credence sits in the tracks, wary and broken and tired, closing in on himself. His eyes are dark but broken, cold. They burn through him with unimaginable intensity.

And Newt tries his hardest to come closer, crack open the shell and calm the poor boy down, but Graves is relentless in his persuasion; he has such a hold on Credence it makes Newt wonder how they know each other.

"Don't listen to him," the English man snaps, but he's rebutted. The city is cracking and lord knows what's happening outside.

Then Tina bursts in and recognition flickers in the boy's eyes. They have a chance, Newt thinks, as the darkness slowly begins to dissipate.

Wizarding officials flood in and disintegrate the Obscurial whole.

* * *

"I see you," Newt whispers into the air as a flicker of black floats away into the sky. He can breathe easily; a piece is alive.

He won't leave. Not yet. Not until he finds the boy.

* * *

Credence cannot see, cannot hear, cannot taste, and he cannot feel anything except for dull pain that never leaves him. Occasionally he will rise to the surface of the ocean of consciousness to catch glimpses of New York, but it is soundless and blurry. His body feels too hot and too cold, taut, aching.

From what he remembers, he knows he scrambled to find safety and collapsed in some sort of abandoned alleyway.

It's futile to try and move. He is but a whisper of a person and remembers only the corpses of his family, the wake of his destruction. How can he live if he has no will to live?

He sinks back into darkness, unbidden.

 


	5. V

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm a literal piece of shit. i'm so sorry for not updating this in a freaking month... i just had no motivation to write it and i was going to just abandon it but suddenly got interested again. i swear i'm an idiot but i promise, promise to continue this. thanks to the readers who will give it another chance

"Any luck today?" Tina sets her quill down to look up from her desk, chucking a note plane into the air. Newt hastily pulls a chair in front of her, watching as it sails away to the intended receiver.

"There's a- well, there's a problem," he leans forward, elbows on his knees. "There's a faint trail of magic I can trace, and I follow it every day, but as soon as it gets to a certain street it just... stops. Completely cuts off."

"How strange."

"And there's nothing around the area, no magic, nothing. It's the most peculiar thing. I've been trying for weeks now and-"

The office door is lazily cast open with a spell, and Newt abruptly stands. They both turn as Auror Blackadder enters with a stroll, whistling without a care in the world. He smiles brilliantly at them. "You two okay? You sure look spooked."

Porpentina composes her expression. "Oh, we were just surprised, that's all. What are you doing here?"

"Just checking in. Did you get my note, Tina? A new case opened up- I was thinking we could discuss it over lunch tomorrow."

Newt closes in on himself, as always. It doesn't go unnoticed. She replies, "That sounds great. I'll see you tomorrow then."

He takes off his hat in farewell and saunters back out the door, rather reluctantly. As soon as it closes he turns and grins slyly. "Looks like someone's taken a liking to you."

"Oh, shut up, you," she smiles, but there's a tenderness in her eyes. He jokes lightly with Tina, but it feels false with such a heavy heart.

* * *

Credence is slowly returning to a corporeal form. When he feels solid enough to touch brick and dirt, he rises for the first time in days, on unsteady feet and blurry eyes. There's a persistent pounding in his skull, throbbing deep inside the brain. He takes in his surroundings and realizes he isn't anywhere near the church or the train tunnel, sighing with relief.

The boy never wants to go back home, if he could ever call it that. There would only be destruction and corpses, if anything.

He's in between some cheap apartments, the kind that stays vacant for days at a time, with rusty fire escapes climbing up the sides and stray alley cats yowling behind trash cans. Just a minute or two of walking brings him to the familiar New York City, the one he knows, with bustling taxis and people. Passerby pays little attention to him, but he's used to it, because everyone ignores him when he tries to hand out New Salem pamphlets.

But that reminds him of Ma and Chastity and the others so he stops thinking about it.

Every tall figure walking briskly along, trench coat swooping and hat hanging low, reminds Credence of someone very familiar. He imagines one of them taking off their hat to reveal pepper-and-salt hair, strong brows, and an expression of concern.

He imagines one of them setting down a suitcase to hold him close.

Credence isn't a fool- he knows what Graves did to him isn't right. He knows it's a cruel show of force. But he has never been caressed and embraced like that before. He longs for human contact, even now.

Strangers are starting to look. Some might even recognize him, the boy listlessly staring at the sidewalk as if searching for something long gone. It's cold outside, but he's too numb to feel much of anything.

Gradually, Credence turns, and begins walking. To where, he doesn't know.


	6. VI

"Oh my God," Newt stops in his tracks, fingers outstretched, demeanor like that of a spooked cat. "Gosh, Tina, come here- the energy signature is so strong. Unbelievable."

She complies, jogging carefully over to where he's standing, and her eyes widen fractionally. "You're right, Newt. We found something."

 _His footfalls are a steady rhythm against the cobblestones, but his fingers tap a sporadic beat into his tattered shirt._ "I was so surprised. It's almost as if..."

_...Credence had just been here._

The magizoologist turns, slowly, towards the endless stream of people traveling to and fro streets. His eyes search for something not there.

* * *

Credence has been walking for God knows how long, and his feet ache and his mouth is dry but stopping is a fantasy. Nobody stops to stare or care so he plows on.

All of these people have a destination: somewhere to be, somewhere to go. And even if they don't, even if they're only wandering aimlessly like him, it's in a happy state of mind, knowing they are free to do what they please, but leashed altogether to beloved people back at their beloved homes.

He has none of that. He has nothing. It feels bitter to think and ugly to say but it's true. But Credence remembers the magic underlying in him, but he hasn't felt the dark force push up against his mind since the Aurors tried to kill him. He wonders if it's dead now. Is that good or bad?

And in time, the boy stops in the flowing river of people.

He feels a strange tug at his heart. A pull.

He turns back around.

* * *

Newt Scamander's eyebrows dip in an expression of confusion, and for no apparent reason he begins walking. "Where are you going?" Tina calls after him, and he only replies, "Clues."

She chuckles and stays in the area of magic but he forges on.

The sun is at its peak, shining brightly down on the city, even though the temperature is chilly.


	7. VII

"Credence," Newt whispers, and his first movement is clutching the boy by his arm. Surprisingly, there is no reaction; he doesn't flinch away, doesn't jump in alarm. Newt realizes it might be because of exhaustion.

He apparates them to a more secluded, private area in between walls and they're both breathing hard, one shocked, one tired. Newt has never been happier to see the dark eyes, angular face, and choppy hair.

"Are you alright?" he asks, and realizes what a stupid question it must be, but at that moment Credence collapses in his arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the end is near

**Author's Note:**

> updating hella soon


End file.
